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Old 26th April 2012, 18:23   #16
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

I guess BOT stands for Build (the road), operate (collect tolls) and transfer. I had hardly seen any transfers happening anyway!

What I see on Pune Kolhapur stretch is that toll is increased every now and then. In the last six months the toll between Pune and Satara is increased twice. The first time around they said it is increased because they are now making the road 4-lane from current 2-lanes. I was surprised because this seems to be OBT (Operate first, then or simultaneously Build and obviously no transfer). Now the total toll is Rs. 235 for a distance of 230 KM which costs me more than a Rupee per KM. Why can't we have a nationwide standard? I understand building road cost in ghat sections could be more than that on the straight roads, but there can definitely some standardizations.

sgiik, you rightly pointed out that no one is considering the amount we are paying as road tax. That is supposed to be considered for building new roads and maintaining existing ones. These days, no new road is built without toll!!

The only occasion when I saw the toll collection being stopped is at the Khambataki ghat section where new tunnel was built. Now I am thinking that they abandoned the toll plaza, but they are milking that money through other toll plazas on either sides of the ghat section.
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Old 26th April 2012, 18:58   #17
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

Exactly what I have been thinking for the last few months.Toll plazas are being put up almost everywhere to mint the money from public and ven rates are increased every now and then even though the no. of vehicles are increasing crossing that road.
last month I traveled from Gurdaspur to Chandigarh and I stopped at six toll plazas to pay total of Rs.228.In fact toll plazas were maximum in no. where the condition of road was worst and heaviest of traffic.
Also JLd-ASR road has no logic of toll plaza when road is not fully constructed.
Even worst, in few months time I will have to pay toll on Gurdaspur-Batala road daily but the quality of road being built under this 'BOT' is just not good.

I do agree with fellow tbhpian that there is some kind of scam going on in Punjab regarding toll collection and I dont have much hopes on PIL filed recently.
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Old 26th April 2012, 19:07   #18
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

Hats off to the guy who has taken up the issue. Tolling on National and State highways has become a scam of epic proportions. We need someone like Subramanian Swamy to dig up all the skeletons in this case.

I hope I am wrong, but I see one potential weak point in this PIL. They have referred to National Highway Fee Rules 2008, which as name suggests should apply to National Highways and not to State Highways/roads. Chandigarh-Jallandhar road, I suppose is a state highway. Infact various tolls put up across Punjab by M/S Rohan & Rajdeep are on state highways. Althogh Jallandhar-Pathankot and Jallandhar-Amritsar are definitely NHs.

Let wait and watch how it unfolds.

Last edited by kamboj : 26th April 2012 at 19:11.
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Old 26th April 2012, 22:25   #19
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

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Originally Posted by kamboj View Post
. Chandigarh-Jallandhar road, I suppose is a state highway. Infact various tolls put up across Punjab by M/S Rohan & Rajdeep are on state highways. Althogh Jallandhar-Pathankot and Jallandhar-Amritsar are definitely NHs.
From Chandigarh upto Ropar, it is NH21(now NH205?), Then I think it is the state highway upto Phagwara which joins the NH1 from there on.
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Old 26th April 2012, 22:30   #20
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

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Originally Posted by kamboj View Post
Hats off to the guy who has taken up the issue. Tolling on National and State highways has become a scam of epic proportions. We need someone like Subramanian Swamy to dig up all the skeletons in this case.

I hope I am wrong, but I see one potential weak point in this PIL. They have referred to National Highway Fee Rules 2008, which as name suggests should apply to National Highways and not to State Highways/roads. Chandigarh-Jallandhar road, I suppose is a state highway. Infact various tolls put up across Punjab by M/S Rohan & Rajdeep are on state highways. Althogh Jallandhar-Pathankot and Jallandhar-Amritsar are definitely NHs.

Let wait and watch how it unfolds.
I was doing a little bit of digging and was surprised to know that this M/s rohan & Rajdeep is a joint venture between Rohan builders of Pune and Rajdeep buildcon of Ahmednagar. Both are Maharashtra based companies and their joint venture has been given the right to collect toll in return for "Upgradation, Operation & Maintenance" of those roads in Punjab. Note there is no construction involved. So that means that the initial roadwork (pun intended) was done by the govt. Also there exists no data that i could locate of any previous work done by them in Punjab.
Ques 1 - How come all their work is concentrated in Punjab? There are other states who are also "giving away" stretches for toll collection.
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Old 27th April 2012, 10:34   #21
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

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I was doing a little bit of digging and was surprised to know that this M/s rohan & Rajdeep is a joint venture between Rohan builders of Pune and Rajdeep buildcon of Ahmednagar.......
The website is about Rajdeep group only and they have done some projects in Maharashtra and other parts of India. But I could not find anything about their JV, Rohan & Rajdeep. This leads me to think that Rohan & Rajdeep JV must be a having some Punjab based influential persons as partners.
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Old 27th April 2012, 10:59   #22
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

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Originally Posted by kamboj View Post
The website is about Rajdeep group only and they have done some projects in Maharashtra and other parts of India. But I could not find anything about their JV, Rohan & Rajdeep. This leads me to think that Rohan & Rajdeep JV must be a having some Punjab based influential persons as partners.
Not just any influential persons. The ones at the very helm of affairs, if you know what I mean.

They have also been given the contract for the 4 laning of Chandigarh Bathinda strech. Apparently, 5 toll booths are expected for the 200KM strech.
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Old 27th April 2012, 11:09   #23
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

Very heartening to hear this news about the PIL.

At the same time, we all know that the whole business of toll-plazas is a can of worms. The amount of money involved is so huge that concerned people would go to any length to protect their interests.
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Old 27th April 2012, 11:38   #24
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

I would like to request those following this thread to read and arm themselves with information on "Viability gap funding" and "Negative viability gap funding". This is going to be source of a huge scam one day. Will also put into perspective how businesses are "made" viable.
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Old 27th April 2012, 17:46   #25
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

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Not just any influential persons. The ones at the very helm of affairs, if you know what I mean.
Well you put it rather directly, I just wanted to keep it little abstract .

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Originally Posted by avisidhu View Post
They have also been given the contract for the 4 laning of Chandigarh Bathinda strech. Apparently, 5 toll booths are expected for the 200KM strech.
Tolling on state highways is rather more rampant in Punjab, in Haryana I see little or no such instance. Not to turn this into political debate, someone is minting money at expense of poor public, but then public themselves are responsible for voting this government back in to power.
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Old 29th April 2012, 10:35   #26
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

At least the SC seems to be taking notice :

'No toll on unfinished NHs' - The Times of India

But then, the SC can only recommend the Govt. to do something, which the Govt. ultimately doesn't.
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Old 29th April 2012, 10:44   #27
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

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Originally Posted by esteem_lover View Post
This is a good thing, but the access control is also an issue that needs to be addressed. Any idea how this is handled in developed countries ?
Atleast in France, I have seen that tolled expressways literally "within walls" and there are toll booths at each entry/exit. IIRC the exits are usually about 20-25km apart. Of course, motorists have the choice of taking a non-tolled roads which are not as wide as the expressways and also have lower speed limit (90 v 130).
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Old 1st May 2012, 18:18   #28
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Re: PIL against Toll Plazas admitted in Punjab and Haryana high court

I am not happy with the way toll plazas increase the toll every year. While the state of toll roads are not all that good, (Thoppur Ghat section, Chennai-Kanchipuram, Kanchipuram - Ambur) these toll plazas keep on increasing the tolls like anything. The worst case is there are no toilet facilities in any tolls along the Karur-Madurai route.

I always have a feeling that I am being robbed when paying tolls. Sadly the public can do little about tolls. We do not have any control.
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